Empowering child welfare agencies in the digital age
Across the world, child welfare agencies are seeking to improve outcomes for the children and families they serve. By working across the social services ecosystem, including health organizations, educators, public housing, hospitals, and public safety and justice agencies, case workers can enable these outcomes through a holistic approach to family engagement. However, this kind of collaboration can be challenging with traditional resource limitations, aging and outdated systems, conflicting priorities, high caseloads, and understaffing in agencies. Further, it has been documented that case workers spend about 60-70% of their time on case-related activities such as documentation, with only about 20-35% dedicated to working directly with families.1 Digital transformation can enable a new way that case workers operate creating efficiency, capacity, and ultimately allowing for more time spent with children and families.
Imagine the possibilities of modern technology to:
• Create a positive impact for a child’s safety by delivering personalized, proactive services based on each unique familial situation using analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence
• Allow for a mobile-enabled workforce with multi-platform compatibility, including access to case data, note taking, appointment scheduling, and real-time notifications
• Facilitate informed decision making through at-a-glance consolidation of critical information with configurable dashboards and immediate case review
• Support modern collaboration with end user portals, digital assistants, and secure multi-team engagement
Microsoft understands technology will never replace wisdom and experience of those in the field. But it can support a new way work is done creating worker empowerment, family engagement, and more effective services for those in need. Microsoft is ready to work with agency leaders to help envision what digital transformation looks like, and create a strategy to deploy innovative technologies while optimizing agency resources and budgets.
To explore further how technology is changing the way social services are delivered, read the “Cultivating our future. Empowering child welfare agencies in the digital age” whitepaper today.
